Guild Wars 2

Zoldyck.6241:

tolunart.2095:

kosmo.2437:

they chose a path by doing this living story thing, and in the next year we ll see where will that lead them to, i predict to a free to play model…

If they do that, I’m gonna cancel my subscription.

I think what he mean is that you don’t have to buy the main game, it can be downloaded for free (yea, wrong words used).

Since GW1 never went this route I seriously can not see GW2 ever being completely free. It is currently a workable model that ANET is using. Until sometime in the future someone gets a completely free downloadable game that has no gem shop to be profitable I can’t really see the need to change it.

I agree to the core pointers of OP. Nonetheless what those who disagree thinks, there need to be change with the way they adjust their systems and present content in GW2, otherwise people will get tired. Same reason why people always eventually leave mainstream MMO, because GW2 has post launch gone down certain similiar bumpy roads.

Regarding WvW Im not fully agreeing on. This is a very touchy subject for many as there are those who truly live for it and those who just “tag along”. Surely its siege and defending systems could always be tweaked, but WvW as it is provides a rare mechanic not seen in other MMOs – unique is nice. We must’nt go to the point where we have to criticise everything for it all to make sense.

GW2 has a beautiful world and art style, they nailed combat and class playstyle and variety. This for me is unique, it wants me to stay in GW2 because no one else can offer this. The playstyle of my ele, the attunement dancing is wonderful.
My concerns doesnt favor the hardcore or the casual, but where and how we spend our time in endgame on our 80s.

My main concern for keeping me online and question when logged in on my 80, is grind the way to handle endgame content? Yes Anet, you dont like the word endgame, but the way you’ve been handling system designs can question this. All from fractals or the random X chance to get ticket to get skin from events.
I question this because every single MMO out there provides some sort of grind. Grinding in itself isnt the problem, but the way it is presented is, the tedious content road you have to take. For instance, I find myself at SPvP rank 17 but I just cant seem to find that strenght to push higher ranks, it takes so much time. I spent an hour doing SPvP and for every match I gained roughly 150 to 200 rank points – and where I am now I need 5000 rank points for every rank. I do this to get better skins, but this is painful. Not only because it is time consuming, but we only have 1 game mode (capture the flag). Again, the way I have to grind makes the time factor a stronger factor. Worst of all, the way they handle this content and system design, it brings similiarities to other MMOs (such as PvP grind in Rift), and reminds me of why I left. Does it take hardcore to get the best gearskin, because all I need is time, there is no sense of special achievement, to get the best looking skin. Does it make me a casual for not wanting to do these same instances over and over again, not because I lack skill, but because I see the time spent as frustrating and pointless? Dont get me wrong, the SPvP maps are enjoyable, but not the same gamemode 1000 times, overall it makes me wonder. And because of this I need to spend my time elsewhere, but on what? Farm fractals over and over to slowly gain more ranks?

I understand that we all have split feelings of how an MMO is and should be, and what could have been. I have yet to come across that MMO that tries to open up by providing different ways in achieving the common goal. It’s fun to finally get that epic thing you’ve been chasing, but what if they made that journy fun and meanigful, and not just the end? This is a broad question that could be asked in every type of content GW2 provides, no matter its success or not.

What I want from Guild Wars 2 is to support both systems of play. Let casuals have access to all the content, which means no gear progression. At the same time, introduce instances like Fractals without the Ascended grind, but with specific skins like the Fractal weapon ones.

Guild Wars 2 never really took off until Fractals of the Mists. The current community doesn’t like it and that’s fine, because it harkens back to the WoW tradition of MMO developing. It never really had the GW2 vibe – it was gear progression and a lot of people were flipped off by that. I didn’t appreciate it either, because it made level 80 alts that much harder to finish equipping. But before the dungeon started getting exploited at every turf, it was enjoyable, challenging content – it kept the playerbase stabile and, with the exception of the stat upgrades, happy with GW2’s longevity.

I don’t want a replica of Fractals introduced, or an impossible dungeon that kills a person on the party automatically every 1 minute. Fact is, if the current content is so numbingly easy it pulls you from the immersion. GW2’s idea of dragon fights are simply an insult to dragons. Bosses don’t feel threatening, WvW without TS orders is a complete mess and the only focused experience remains PvP. I’ve never found myself alt-tabbing out of a game while playing it and I do that constantly with Guild Wars 2 – PvE feels like a chore and it shouldn’t be that way when you have so many opportunities to expand it and make it interesting.

What I want:

1) Hard, compelling content with rewards specific to completing it
2) Not time-gated content, I don’t want to grind and be consumed by Guild Wars 2, I just want a solid experience
3) Scavenger Hunt (before I have kids, if possible)
4) No gear progression
5) No task (achievement) grinding for skins
6) Less AoE, more counterplay in WvW. This isn’t valid for everyone, but the majority of people just tag along with the Commander and to them, it’s a click-spam zerg fest.
7) Permanent content, for Dwayna’s sake
8) Items in the gem store that I can use in combat, like Rox & Braham’s weapon skins. I’m fine with minis and town clothes, as long as they’re not all that’s introduced in the game. (and yes, I know about the Steampunk sets and I appreciate them, but they’re not enough for almost a year of updates)
9) Emphasis on Dynamic Events and spreading the population around Tyria.
10) Meaning to the other cities. LA doesn’t even feel like a city, it’s a service area where people flip gold and drown their tears in the Forge. There are ways to make places like Divinity’s Reach matter in an MMO: cluttering up LA with content is not a way to do it.

11) Most important: a game that doesn’t shaft the designers’ work at every opportunity. Soooo much content and it’s useless to a level 80 player, why? What’s the point of making this world then?

What I don’t want:

1) RNG box abuse, I’ve discussed it in a previous thread
2) Required luck to get the most expensive items
3) Temporary content. New players need to be hooked occasionally, not constantly, if the focus is not on the people committed to the game, then it’s not an MMO, it’s a single game that operates like an EA franchise.
4) Living story that’s this uninspired and dull. I’ve been playing fantasy games for 10 years and I’ve never been this off-put by a setting. Where’s the magic and the mystery of Guild Wars? The Flame&Frost story had decent elements and people wanted future content to be like the Molten Facility. So what happened?
5) Treating players like gambling addicts. I don’t mind a little random factor in games, but don’t rub it in my face at every opportunity, I’m not playing Guild Wars 2 because I want an online casino, I do so because I want to be immersed in a multiplayer RPG.

That’s off the top of my head, there’s bound to be more. Should be enough to start a constructive discussion.

AntiGw.9367:

There’s nothing offensive with the Mystic Forge or precursor drops. When you decide to make a legendary, you are fully aware you have like 0.0x% chance of achieving it. You accept those odds, and you are not entitled to succeeding, no matter how much you work for it. You accepted the odds that include a chance to fail (although you can still buy one after all that work

People are aware of the odds. Doesn’t change the fact that RNG is the most un-fun, un-interesting, un-creative and not to mention un-legendary way that can be conceived to dole out ingredients used to make the best looking weapons in the game.

I honestly don’t get why people defend the RNG required to get precursor weapons. It literally makes no sense. If a way can be made to get them that is fun and challenging, and one can, why on earth would you defend rng?

bloodletting wolf.2837:

2.Raids are coming – hopefully without a gear treadmill.

yea, for 2 weeks only then its all gone

@insignya

Actually, the introduction of the FotM split (past tense one) the community in half. I’m pretty sure at that specific instance, there were a lot of people who simultaneously left due to principle.

1. I think the problem is how do you set its ‘hard level’ appropriately to suit both casuals and hardcore? If it’s too easy, hardcore players will scoff at it. Too hard, and casuals will complain.

2. Imo, gw2 doesn’t have a lot of time-gated content. But I guess you’re complaining about the laurels?

Agree with 3-5.

6. Contrary to popular belief, I think wvw has evolved enough (at higher tiers esp) to not devolve into a zergvzerg fest. There are a lot of intricacies in zerg clashes as you’ll frequently see a smaller zerg outmaneuvering a bigger zerg, or a smaller zerg beating a bigger zerg just because they know how to coordinate (and outfit) their players better. However, this is true only for the wvw-ers. Casual players (who are totally welcome in our wvw maps btw :p) will have to resign to sticking with the commander, and even then it’s not so easy to do.

7. I think they’re adding them bit by bit. They added SSC, then changed it with the living story, and now it’s different than before. It’s sad that people only go there during the living story updates though I wish they can make SSC CS2.0 as another alternative farming place.

I also agree with everything in What I don’t want list except #3.

I think temporary events/content bring some excitement at the very least to the gw2 world. Although the rate at which they’re coming is pretty fast. Methinks they use these events as an instant-item/gold sink with the ridiculous recipes.

Ision.3207:

OP, I get it, you want harder content and a better WvW dynamic.

Cool, I’m with ya …. just as long as this does NOT include any further erosion of GW2 towards stat-based vertical progression or the creation of any must-have classes (trinity model) for the harder content.

Otherwise, suggest away, and I’m with you.

This is where the meat of the problem lies though. Gear progression is what motivates MMO players to want to get past harder and harder content and keep playing. Having tanks and healers is what makes runs smoother and avoid 5 DPS hopping around like mad men playing what is essentially a ‘bullet-hell’ game.

GW2 has an outstanding outdoor world with great graphics, music, things to do and general livelihood. The rest of the game is very flat though. Not enough skills available, dungeons are not compelling, big bosses and WvW are just zerg and there is zero community beyond, “Event up?”, “Troll up @50%” then silence until it’s dead/looted and everyone runs away from each other…

I’m a very old-school MMOer and the damage WoW has done to this genre is just heartbreaking. The handholding and fear that MMO devs have lately, must stop. You need world, dungeons, guilds(community), PvP, raids, gear and trinity(classes) to make an MMORPG. This is a very tried and true formula. Everything tuned, must be tuned around that basic toolset, that is where you innovate; not just pick and choose where to omit things that might be too hard to figure out.

Of the above 7 essentials of MMOs I mentioned, GW2 has but one as an A+. The rest are D- or NA. WoW, as GW2s biggest competition (which I find horrible anymore) is D- world, A+ for trinity/skills, used to be A+ for raids/dungeons (I would give it a D- for both now but it got subs in the past)used to be A+ for community (again, would give a F- currently, but survives due to forming in game friendships) and an A+ for gear progression before the whole handholding LFD/LFR system, now it’s an F- pointless welfare system.

The field is wide open to innovate what was good, with what could be new and fun. Players will rise to the challenge if offered, I guarantee it. WoW is bleeding subs, all new MMOs since WoW are floundering by trying to copy it and/or appealing to hyper-casuals.

Points to consider:

Gear is not the goal, the content is.

Community helps get to the content, by helping each other in guilds, open world solo events or by networking.

PvP should be an entirely different gear and rule set.

PvP should be nothing but large-scale instanced pug matches. Arenas like SPvP suck balls and players only do them for gear, if at all. Use lots of isolated battle points like towers, landmarks/relics/spawnables, flags and PvE bosses. Each player is rewarded on personal performance only.

Thank you OP this is a post that is clear in it’s intent.
I agree with many of the things you say here- however I do feel that if we say we do not like one thing, we should give an alternative that we would like yes?
That is what constructive criticism is.
I don’t agree with other things but it is a matter of opinion and you are allowed to have yours as I am allowed mine.

I will just touch on some things you have said:

hard, compelling content:

I agree mostly- the problem with implementing this in the current scenario is that people will avoid hard content in favour of easier content with high reward/low time investment.
See the Karka Queen meta event vs CoF.

I believe that this will only be addressed when Anet revise the rewards across the board- which is in the works.

Focusing on DE’s, expanding those- adding a better/ more unique reward structure might go a long way toward spreading people around the maps.
We also need a lot more variety in cosmetics in this game- reward specific items for long metas, quest chains across several maps, things like that.

I have no problem with temp content and Living Story and I understand the reasoning behind it.
I do have a huge problem with temp skins tied to RnG tickets and have made numerous suggestions around it so I will not repost it here.

Everyone wants more permanent content and we will get it.

As for the Cities: I agree, hopefully when they add mini- games and/or housing this will be addressed.
I think the games true strength lies in the open world, the community and the co-operative nature of the design and yes in the open ended “endgame”
IMO these are the things that should be strengthened and supported

As I scroll up this thread I have to say, IMO. There is nothing about GW2 even remotely hardcore, it’s all hyper-casual or super-casual, every single element.

There is no need to divide yourselves up as ‘casual vs. hardcore’, those terms do not even not even remotely apply.

Get real ppls.

OP, I completely agree with everything you’ve posted. I have such a love-hate relationship with GW2, and you nailed it directly on the head as to why; it’s an on-and-off game to play, not one that sustains a community that will stick around. This is largely due to the Living Story garbage they try to pass off as updates. More random, mundane tasks that provide little or no benefit. Woopie! The weapons/armor skins that come with the updates can be nice, yes, but GW2 shouldn’t be Dress-Up My Avatar and maybe do some interesting content once every blue moon. I’m glad to hear Raids are coming, and I really hope they provide real and interesting mechanics.

Something else that really gripes me about ANet is their sluggish updating speed when it comes to class balance. June 25th was their “biggest balance update ever!” and it failed to address many, many problems that other classes are experiencing. Ranger pets are still a joke in instances and now they made them worse? Unbelievable, especially after all the great suggestions from the community on how to fix pets. Warriors still have no niche in SPvP. Thieves underwater combat was bad enough, yet they nerfed them in this area why? I could go on, but I’ll stop myself before this thread derails into a discussion of class balance. All I’ll say on the matter is that ANet needs to seriously reconsider how they go about their updates and what classes truly need the attention at the moment.

Don’t get me wrong, because even though I sound really negative, I truly enjoyed when I installed GW2 off of my CE’s disk and stepped into this fresh experience. The combat was fresh, the story was exciting, and the world was truly awe-inspiring in beauty. But now the new-car smell has faded and I’m beginning to see ANet’s intentions. The garbage they’re trying to pass off as content updates is sad, because I had faith in their manifesto. I won’t be sticking around much longer if serious changes don’t occur, and soon.

Dhar.6392:

I abandoned the game for 6 months for many reasons but my top list.

1. Fractals. When this started up- it was Wow and every other MMO I have ever played all over again. I don’t have the time to grind endlessly. Legendary Weapons being difficult I can accept given my circumstances. Fractal progression… that was my breaking point.

(I have not completed a single Fractal yet… I think I know where the entrance is…)

Perhaps it would interest you to know that the items with ascended stats that you get from fractals are also available for purchase by laurels from the daily achievement and guild commendations from guild missions (which are fun).

I have done a few fractals (like 10), they were actually fun. I have full ascended accessories, rings and amulet, just not the backpiece, which has low stats anyhow.

Your ‘breaking point’ wasn’t really at all what you assumed it would be. I don’t mean to be rude, but you should have at least tried the content or stuck around to see how it affected the game before ditching because of it.

Facepunch.5710:

Dhar.6392:

I abandoned the game for 6 months for many reasons but my top list.

1. Fractals. When this started up- it was Wow and every other MMO I have ever played all over again. I don’t have the time to grind endlessly. Legendary Weapons being difficult I can accept given my circumstances. Fractal progression… that was my breaking point.

(I have not completed a single Fractal yet… I think I know where the entrance is…)

Perhaps it would interest you to know that the items with ascended stats that you get from fractals are also available for purchase by laurels from the daily achievement and guild commendations from guild missions (which are fun).

I have done a few fractals (like 10), they were actually fun. I have full ascended accessories, rings and amulet, just not the backpiece, which has low stats anyhow.

Your ‘breaking point’ wasn’t really at all what you assumed it would be. I don’t mean to be rude, but you should have at least tried the content or stuck around to see how it affected the game before ditching because of it.

As far as I know, the ascended gear that you can buy for laurels does not have agony resistance. You have to run fractals in order to get AR gear that helps with fractals.

Facepunch.5710:

Dhar.6392:

I abandoned the game for 6 months for many reasons but my top list.

1. Fractals. When this started up- it was Wow and every other MMO I have ever played all over again. I don’t have the time to grind endlessly. Legendary Weapons being difficult I can accept given my circumstances. Fractal progression… that was my breaking point.

(I have not completed a single Fractal yet… I think I know where the entrance is…)

Perhaps it would interest you to know that the items with ascended stats that you get from fractals are also available for purchase by laurels from the daily achievement and guild commendations from guild missions (which are fun).

I have done a few fractals (like 10), they were actually fun. I have full ascended accessories, rings and amulet, just not the backpiece, which has low stats anyhow.

Your ‘breaking point’ wasn’t really at all what you assumed it would be. I don’t mean to be rude, but you should have at least tried the content or stuck around to see how it affected the game before ditching because of it.

Players don’t like fractals because they have to use a middleman website to find groups and not in game. They don’t want to do the dungeons to explore content or have a challenge, it’s strictly to get gear they are forced to think they need.

That is a failed concept of ‘ascended’

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

Facepunch.5710:

Dhar.6392:

I abandoned the game for 6 months for many reasons but my top list.

1. Fractals. When this started up- it was Wow and every other MMO I have ever played all over again. I don’t have the time to grind endlessly. Legendary Weapons being difficult I can accept given my circumstances. Fractal progression… that was my breaking point.

(I have not completed a single Fractal yet… I think I know where the entrance is…)

Perhaps it would interest you to know that the items with ascended stats that you get from fractals are also available for purchase by laurels from the daily achievement and guild commendations from guild missions (which are fun).

I have done a few fractals (like 10), they were actually fun. I have full ascended accessories, rings and amulet, just not the backpiece, which has low stats anyhow.

Your ‘breaking point’ wasn’t really at all what you assumed it would be. I don’t mean to be rude, but you should have at least tried the content or stuck around to see how it affected the game before ditching because of it.

As far as I know, the ascended gear that you can buy for laurels does not have agony resistance. You have to run fractals in order to get AR gear that helps with fractals.

None of the early fractal ascended gear has agony resistance either, but for a mere 75 fractal relics, doing very few fractals, you can get a simple infusion that gives you agony resistance.

Vayne.8563:

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

Facepunch.5710:

Dhar.6392:

I abandoned the game for 6 months for many reasons but my top list.

1. Fractals. When this started up- it was Wow and every other MMO I have ever played all over again. I don’t have the time to grind endlessly. Legendary Weapons being difficult I can accept given my circumstances. Fractal progression… that was my breaking point.

(I have not completed a single Fractal yet… I think I know where the entrance is…)

Perhaps it would interest you to know that the items with ascended stats that you get from fractals are also available for purchase by laurels from the daily achievement and guild commendations from guild missions (which are fun).

I have done a few fractals (like 10), they were actually fun. I have full ascended accessories, rings and amulet, just not the backpiece, which has low stats anyhow.

Your ‘breaking point’ wasn’t really at all what you assumed it would be. I don’t mean to be rude, but you should have at least tried the content or stuck around to see how it affected the game before ditching because of it.

As far as I know, the ascended gear that you can buy for laurels does not have agony resistance. You have to run fractals in order to get AR gear that helps with fractals.

None of the early fractal ascended gear has agony resistance either, but for a mere 75 fractal relics, doing very few fractals, you can get a simple infusion that gives you agony resistance.

Flatly, the least compelling element of raiding ever introduced into MMOs was resistance gear. Even in EQ1 it was very minor. This was followed closely by ‘Hit’…

Why drag that element into GW2 and not the others that made fights difficult?

Vayne.8563:

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

Facepunch.5710:

Dhar.6392:

I abandoned the game for 6 months for many reasons but my top list.

1. Fractals. When this started up- it was Wow and every other MMO I have ever played all over again. I don’t have the time to grind endlessly. Legendary Weapons being difficult I can accept given my circumstances. Fractal progression… that was my breaking point.

(I have not completed a single Fractal yet… I think I know where the entrance is…)

Perhaps it would interest you to know that the items with ascended stats that you get from fractals are also available for purchase by laurels from the daily achievement and guild commendations from guild missions (which are fun).

I have done a few fractals (like 10), they were actually fun. I have full ascended accessories, rings and amulet, just not the backpiece, which has low stats anyhow.

Your ‘breaking point’ wasn’t really at all what you assumed it would be. I don’t mean to be rude, but you should have at least tried the content or stuck around to see how it affected the game before ditching because of it.

As far as I know, the ascended gear that you can buy for laurels does not have agony resistance. You have to run fractals in order to get AR gear that helps with fractals.

None of the early fractal ascended gear has agony resistance either, but for a mere 75 fractal relics, doing very few fractals, you can get a simple infusion that gives you agony resistance.

Also, Agony Resistance is only relevant in Fractals, right? So if you’re not running Fractals, you don’t need this gear anyway. This is one example of brilliant added content imo … I DON’T need or want that particular set of gear, and I am totally free to ignore it and Fractals.

Fractals were an example of focused content in Guild Wars 2. They’re not perfect and you’re right to hate them. But you can’t, in good conscience, scratch them off, because they created a dedicated community in the game. Should we have more ascended items before GW2 is fixed? No. Do we need content with a purpose in the game? By all Gods, YES.

Once again, you can’t innovate by removing things and not adding an alternative. You can’t rid of gear grind by just saying “nope, we won’t have gear grind”. What do we get in return? Surely you need a new system to replace the old one. Where’s Guild Wars 2 in that regard?

Right now GW2 is off the radar for newcomers and that’s a fact- no famous youtube channels dedicated to GW2, no streaming, no machinima content… In fact, all the game has in its defense is the 2012 GOTY award, which I fully agree with and in fact voted for Guild Wars 2… except that was last year! Now people are off the hype train and the game is carrying an enormous amount of flak that’s alienating a huge number of potential customers. The devs could set the record straight and give us the weather forecast for the remainder of 2013… or they can forever dwell in silence.

Note that hardcore titles are almost non-existent nowadays. There’s just too many games on the market. Most won’t sit in LA idly thinking to themselves “I’ll wait till it’s fixed. I’m sure it will be great in 2 years!” They’ll jump the board at first sight of a game that doesn’t share Guild Wars 2’s mistakes, even if it fails in areas where GW2 succeeds.

I don’t know if Wildstar will be the next hit since WoW. All I know is the devs have shown countless times they’ll be catering to casuals and veterans. Hardcore players will have the Elder game, while people who don’t have the time or will to commit will be pleased with the evolving content of the game that has nothing to do with gear grinding. Yes, it’s all marketing. But if it does live up to the hype, Wildstar will be a competitor, because it has every element Arena.NET claimed it would support.

Galtrix.7369:

Legendary weapons should not be obtained by luck. When people throw in thousands of rares and exotics and get crap, then a noob comes walking up to the mystic forge, tosses in 4 rares and gets a precursor instantly, they have every reason to be upset. Legendary weapons should be obtained by the amount of effort you put into getting them and should not have a .00001% chance to get one.

1. I have a beta tester in the guild that I’m in. He said that by the end of the summer there’s going to be a scavenger hunt for precursors. Every single precursor will have different things that you’ll have to do so the problem will be semi-solved there. I do agree that legendary should be gotten by skilled players, however it’s really hard to balance content in a way that only a certain percentage of people could get it without making it unfair.
2. Don’t be sour about someone elses luck. Not all of us are lucky sure, but there’s no need to hate on that lucky noob that threw some yellows in and got a precursor. I hope that he will sell it and get whatever he wants to get in the game. For example I’ll probably never get lucky enough to get a precursor, but I did manage to get a Jade Ticket by opening 182 coffers that I collected while playing. Some people in my guild opened over 4000 of them before they got a ticket. Some spent a fortune and never got it at all. I’m pretty sure that all of us get lucky at some point or another.

Secondly, it is our business where Anet is spending the money we give them. Like a shareholder, we expect to be let in on at least some of the future plans they are going to implement. If they took my money and then said, “Oh, looks like we’re out of money and closing down GW2.”, everyone would wonder where their money went. It is our business.

Well think of it this way – all companies take all money earned from all of their games and throw it into one big pot that they use to fund new projects. GW2 was funded that way, Wildstar is being funded this way. When the project is out, if it’s profitable enough it pays back the money spent on it and fund further projects. If it’s not profitable enough it gets shut down. Anet won’t close GW2 while it’s profitable and they’re not going to go bankrupt until at least one of their projects is still profitable.

Galtrix.7369:

The living story is the worst type of content.

Well personal opinion. I personally like it. It means that there is something new every time when I log on.

Insignya.8625:

Right now GW2 is off the radar for newcomers and that’s a fact- no famous youtube channels dedicated to GW2, no streaming, no machinima content… In fact, all the game has in its defense is the 2012 GOTY award, which I fully agree with and in fact voted for Guild Wars 2… except that was last year! Now people are off the hype train and the game is carrying an enormous amount of flak that’s alienating a huge number of potential customers. The devs could set the record straight and give us the weather forecast for the remainder of 2013… or they can forever dwell in silence.

1. They told us that they will update us on the future plans for the rest of 2013 in July. It’s July. Expect it to be soon.
2. I can verify that the game is still getting customers because it’s getting advertised by the word of mouth. For example my mother’s boyfriend’s guild is moving away from WoW and to GW2, mostly because a) They’re bored with the old MMO b) They heard that it’s good. Therefore the game is still getting new players.

Primernova.5791:

This thread is pointless.

MMOs are dead and there’s no going back.

Yes, that must be why so many new MMOs are coming out recently. Because the field is dead and not profitable.

Primernova.5791:

You need world, dungeons, guilds(community), PvP, raids, gear and trinity(classes) to make an MMORPG.

To follow the list is exactly how to avoid progress in the genre. The genre was made stale by games like WoW, because every single game afterwards has followed this formula. We need a wide variety of MMOs to pick and choose from. For example, Crytek seems to be working on A F2P FPS MMO.
http://www.crytek.com/games/warface/overview
Unlike Planetside it will have both PVP and PVE. Do you think that this game will need gear progression, raids and trinity?
A game has to be different to attract attention. Saying that all MMOs should follow that model is the same as saying that all MOBAs has to have a top down view.

@Mirva, can I ask, what beta test is your friend participating in? Is there a secret PBE server we’re not aware of? I appreciate your feedback, but I don’t think this is how a company should treat their fans. Are we not worthy of a developer’s post that we have to wait for the next PR talk from Colin? I have never seen this in a game, honestly, where a developer announces when he’ll tell players what’s going on. If you don’t like your own official forums, use Reddit! A platform that almost all gaming devs are currently using to reach out to the community.

The most obvious way to decide whether or not the player population is in decline is to play the game. I have, for 10 months, and based on my experience, Seafarer’s Rest is nearly void of dedicated players. Yeah, people jump back when it’s time to bash dragons but temples get uncontested ‘bout once a day, CoF is almost impossible to get in, most of the dedicated Commanders in WvW have left and I knew some of them. That’s what I use as a method to support my statement- if I don’t see people playing, to me it seems that the game is dying. It didn’t use to be like that.

The reward chances are broken, I don’t think proof is needed here. For reference point, I’ve committed close to 2000 hours in Guild Wars 2 and have never had an item worth more than 5 gold. Many people feel the same – that they don’t complain about it means they’ve lost hope this can be fixed. There is no way to justify a system this extreme – it literally makes playing the game obsolete because you can just win the lottery and have more gold than the person who’s been playing since release.

You can even draw a parallel with Diablo III. That’s right, a game that also doesn’t reward players for their efforts, rather their item flipping skills and luck. To me the Black Lion TradePost is a less evil incarnation of the Auction House, but is just as harmful to the game. Yes, you can’t bury everyone in exotics because the market would crash. However, if a single random-chance Dusk is worth more gold than I’ve made collectively over 10 months, then something is seriously wrong.

PS: Fix your censorship system, please! Kitten.

Insignya.8625:

What I want:

1) Hard, compelling content with rewards specific to completing it
2) Not time-gated content, I don’t want to grind and be consumed by Guild Wars 2, I just want a solid experience
3) Scavenger Hunt (before I have kids, if possible)
4) No gear progression
5) No task (achievement) grinding for skins
6) Less AoE, more counterplay in WvW. This isn’t valid for everyone, but the majority of people just tag along with the Commander and to them, it’s a click-spam zerg fest.
7) Permanent content, for Dwayna’s sake
8) Items in the gem store that I can use in combat, like Rox & Braham’s weapon skins. I’m fine with minis and town clothes, as long as they’re not all that’s introduced in the game. (and yes, I know about the Steampunk sets and I appreciate them, but they’re not enough for almost a year of updates)
9) Emphasis on Dynamic Events and spreading the population around Tyria.
10) Meaning to the other cities. LA doesn’t even feel like a city, it’s a service area where people flip gold and drown their tears in the Forge. There are ways to make places like Divinity’s Reach matter in an MMO: cluttering up LA with content is not a way to do it.

11) Most important: a game that doesn’t shaft the designers’ work at every opportunity. Soooo much content and it’s useless to a level 80 player, why? What’s the point of making this world then?

What I don’t want:

1) RNG box abuse, I’ve discussed it in a previous thread
2) Required luck to get the most expensive items
3) Temporary content. New players need to be hooked occasionally, not constantly, if the focus is not on the people committed to the game, then it’s not an MMO, it’s a single game that operates like an EA franchise.
4) Living story that’s this uninspired and dull. I’ve been playing fantasy games for 10 years and I’ve never been this off-put by a setting. Where’s the magic and the mystery of Guild Wars? The Flame&Frost story had decent elements and people wanted future content to be like the Molten Facility. So what happened?
5) Treating players like gambling addicts. I don’t mind a little random factor in games, but don’t rub it in my face at every opportunity, I’m not playing Guild Wars 2 because I want an online casino, I do so because I want to be immersed in a multiplayer RPG.

That’s off the top of my head, there’s bound to be more. Should be enough to start a constructive discussion.

I’ll comment on a few of these.

Wants:

1) Dungeons were supposed to be GW2’s hard content. The combination of dungeon meta and PvP balancing affecting PvE killed this concept. Dungeons were supposed to require coordinated groups of skilled players, not coordinated groups of skilled players invalidating the challenge by killing mobs before their mitigation resources run out. Since dungeons have to be balanced around groups with any mix of classes, those using the meta will find them easy.

9) The Orr changes may be a prelude to dynamic event changes in general. If the reward pass that has been talked about actually works to incentivize participation. To me (and maybe to ANet), the most disappointing aspect of what has happened so far in GW2’s life has been the decision by much of the player-base to ignore the DE’s for the most part in favor of playing for rewards. The Temple chains can be quite challenging, but for this to work, scaling needs to be reworked. The current scaling rewards very small or very large groups, but punishes anything in between. I’m in wait-and-see on this.

Don’t Want:

4) I don’t object to the idea of Living Story, but implementation has been spotty. I liked the F&F story, disliked Southsun and find the Aetherblades to be uninspired. F&F brought people to lower-level areas, introduced a slew of more challenging mob types, and ended with a very fun dungeon. Southsun consisted of essentially two identical events with 200% MF — which incidentally proved that open world drop rates are extremely poor to begin with. The Aetherblade event is too dependent on RNG (will this hologram proc Aetherbaldes or not?), the story is even more spoon-fed than the personal story, and the dungeon feels more like a manual dexterity challenge than a dungeon.

Insignya.8625:

@Mirva, can I ask, what beta test is your friend participating in? Is there a secret PBE server we’re not aware of?

Believe it or not they do beta test.

Insignya.8625:

Are we not worthy of a developer’s post that we have to wait for the next PR talk from Colin? I have never seen this in a game, honestly, where a developer announces when he’ll tell players what’s going on.

They’re deciding to tell us about future content. Normally companies don’t do that. They just make you wait for it and don’t give you spoilers.

Insignya.8625:

I have, for 10 months, and based on my experience, Seafarer’s Rest is nearly void of dedicated players.

And Underworld is very lively. So by my experience the game is alive and well.

Insignya.8625:

For reference point, I’ve committed close to 2000 hours in Guild Wars 2 and have never had an item worth more than 5 gold.

RNG is part of every MMO. Some people have raided for years in other games without getting their gear.

Insignya.8625:

To me the Black Lion TradePost is a less evil incarnation of the Auction House, but is just as harmful to the game

Allowing players to trade instead of standing in the town yelling what they’re selling all day is bad?

Yes, you can’t bury everyone in exotics because the market would crash. However, if a single random-chance Dusk is worth more gold than I’ve made collectively over 10 months, then something is seriously wrong.

1. Rare items will always be expensive. It just shows the the item is rare/ desired.
2. I probably made enough gold to buy Dusk in my whole playing history. However instead I decided to support my guild, get the master crafter title, get 2 sets of Tier 3 gear, etc. I’m pretty sure that you used your money too.

Insignya.8625:

The reward chances are broken, I don’t think proof is needed here. For reference point, I’ve committed close to 2000 hours in Guild Wars 2 and have never had an item worth more than 5 gold.

Nobody ever promised that you’d get a precursor in less than 500 hours, 2000 hours, 4000 hours and so on.

You conceived an arbitrary expectation for no reason whatsoever, and now rant because it wasn’t fulfilled.

I do agree mostly with the OP in terms of what he adresses in his posts.

I do feel that the game has lost some of its vigor, and to some extent are falling behind in terms of its potential.

I do not realy like this entire fight between casual and hardcore style of play, but truly belive that there is room for both playstyles in GW2 without a gear grind. Either side telling the other that they are wrong or that the game isnt for them and that they should move on, isnt doing anyone a favour, least of all themselves. That’ll only lead to stagnation over time.

I do feel the numbers of players that have left. Many of them were friends from my gw1 days, other mmos and the like. A few real life friends also got the game. I have very few of these left. I still keep going as I’ve been running a guild since beta, up until early march, where I got burnt out trying to manage the guild and the constant pain of keeping the guilds playing and active memberbase up. I returned a month later, and has since been sort of co leading it with one of the 4 people that i know of who still are in the game since BWE 1.

During that time, close to 250 people have been removed from the guild for inactivity. 250. The guild has never seen a membercount above 160, and back when it was that high it was due to inactive players. To me, as a guild leader, that is a very bad sign as that has made it realy hard to create any kind of lasting community whithin the game and been a cause of a lot of concern.

The people who quit that I’ve spoken to, has mostly quit due to a multitude of the reasons the op has outlined, and a few of the pros he has outlined as well.

I wont lie and not say I’m concerned with the way GW2 has developed, or its curent state. I do stil belive and hope that Anet can take steps to remidy what i feel is a negative trend in the game, and thats causing a lot of friction within the curent community that the game has. I do feel that this needs to happen -soon- and not be outlined to happen “sometime later”. Anet can do this through more transparancy, and more direct communication on a more regular basis.

I’ve always been of the opinion that the more players that are satisfied with gw2, the more financialy viable the game will be and thus see more development. The game can certainly achive this by catering to several “crowds” and “playstyles”. Even if the game by some oppinion is doing ok enough now, the potential could be and always will be more, and that is what we realy should whish for and strive for as a community, instead of being content with what is.

AntiGw.9367:

Insignya.8625:

The reward chances are broken, I don’t think proof is needed here. For reference point, I’ve committed close to 2000 hours in Guild Wars 2 and have never had an item worth more than 5 gold.

Nobody ever promised that you’d get a precursor in less than 500 hours, 2000 hours, 4000 hours and so on.

You conceived an arbitrary expectation for no reason whatsoever, and now rant because it wasn’t fulfilled.

How long do you propose people play before they’re “worthy” in your eyes, of a reward? Because after investing 2000 hours into something and not having anything to show for it most people are going to quit and tell everyone who will listen to avoid the game.

I still don’t get why you’re defending such a bad game mechanic as rng.

fellyn.5083:

AntiGw.9367:

Insignya.8625:

The reward chances are broken, I don’t think proof is needed here. For reference point, I’ve committed close to 2000 hours in Guild Wars 2 and have never had an item worth more than 5 gold.

Nobody ever promised that you’d get a precursor in less than 500 hours, 2000 hours, 4000 hours and so on.

You conceived an arbitrary expectation for no reason whatsoever, and now rant because it wasn’t fulfilled.

How long do you propose people play before they’re “worthy” in your eyes, of a reward? Because after investing 2000 hours into something and not having anything to show for it most people are going to quit and tell everyone who will listen to avoid the game.

I still don’t get why you’re defending such a bad game mechanic as rng.

Legendaries and similar skins are supposed to be rare, select few people are supposed to have them.

If you insist on arbitrary numbers, let’s do some arbitrary math with your 2000-hour precursors. A population of 2.000.000 players that plays on average only two hours per day, after a year of farming will generate over 700.000 precursors. With 20 precursor models, that’s 35.000 precursors of each type, after only one year.

If you don’t understand how “unrare” that is, consider that TP currently shows about 10.000 Globs of Ectoplasm. Or, there are only about 20-30 each of the cheapest and kittentiest exotic items that are much more easy to come by.

i bought guild wars 2 hoping it would be at least a resemblance of guild wars 1 i wasn’t disappointed when it first came out that is…

there needs to be end game content that requires time to do, in guild wars 1 i spent hours even days playing to get a voltaic spear, tormented weapon, as well as several armor skins.

the dungeons in this game need reworking, they are far to easy to speed farm. in guild wars 1 the farming groups could often fail if the assassin, ele, or warrior was bad. there is not a point to fighting the mobs as they all drop horrible loot or nothing at all. the bosses are far to easy to kill “spam F to win”. in guild wars 1 the harder dungeons took coordination and a lot of planning to do efficiently as well as time, it should be that way here.

each named boss in guild wars 1 had a unique item that it dropped, in guild wars 2 the champion events around the world(kill the champion skale before it leaves as an example) should have the possibility of dropping a unique item. this would get people out in the world and give them something to do. guild wars 1 used to host design a weapon contests, these should be brought back.

the temporary content is just silly, honestly i was hoping that by the end of the first year guild wars 2 would have an expansion out with a new race as well as new weapon types added. where are some new skills? we should have many many new skills by now! several of the bosses should also have the chance to give the player a new skill.

there needs to be changes to the personal story, its boring and uninspiring. every person they introduce dies far to quickly(the order mentors, + several people later on). there is no connection to the people. in the original guild wars when the killed off rurik i was kitten ed off, i didnt feel that connection with any of the characters here. i was even more upset when the lich brought rurik back as his slave. see where im going here? the players need to feel some connection with people as well as the players character in the personal story, otherwise it should just be renamed to “the story” not “Personal story”

Insignya.8625:

@Mirva, can I ask, what beta test is your friend participating in? Is there a secret PBE server we’re not aware of? I appreciate your feedback, but I don’t think this is how a company should treat their fans. Are we not worthy of a developer’s post that we have to wait for the next PR talk from Colin? I have never seen this in a game, honestly, where a developer announces when he’ll tell players what’s going on. If you don’t like your own official forums, use Reddit! A platform that almost all gaming devs are currently using to reach out to the community.

The most obvious way to decide whether or not the player population is in decline is to play the game. I have, for 10 months, and based on my experience, Seafarer’s Rest is nearly void of dedicated players. Yeah, people jump back when it’s time to bash dragons but temples get uncontested ‘bout once a day, CoF is almost impossible to get in, most of the dedicated Commanders in WvW have left and I knew some of them. That’s what I use as a method to support my statement- if I don’t see people playing, to me it seems that the game is dying. It didn’t use to be like that.

The reward chances are broken, I don’t think proof is needed here. For reference point, I’ve committed close to 2000 hours in Guild Wars 2 and have never had an item worth more than 5 gold. Many people feel the same – that they don’t complain about it means they’ve lost hope this can be fixed. There is no way to justify a system this extreme – it literally makes playing the game obsolete because you can just win the lottery and have more gold than the person who’s been playing since release.

You can even draw a parallel with Diablo III. That’s right, a game that also doesn’t reward players for their efforts, rather their item flipping skills and luck. To me the Black Lion TradePost is a less evil incarnation of the Auction House, but is just as harmful to the game. Yes, you can’t bury everyone in exotics because the market would crash. However, if a single random-chance Dusk is worth more gold than I’ve made collectively over 10 months, then something is seriously wrong.

PS: Fix your censorship system, please! Kitten.

Maybe people are changing servers, guesting, and doing other things. Several people feel their servers are busy. Even very populous games end up with dead servers. It’s one of the things NO MMO has found a way around. Free guesting is a pretty good deal if you ask me.

As far as what most companies do as regard to talking to their fans, most MMO companies don’t communicate that well and some barely communicate at all. Anet doesn’t communicate BEFORE they’re ready to because the fan base will parse each word with a fine tooth comb, and find something to scream about. I don’t blame Anet for not talking to the fan base. There are too many people looking to tear apart anything Anet says. And of course, Anet hasn’t been blameless in that either by saying things that easily could be taken wrong or even saying things that sound different than they are. Choice of words is probably not Anet’s strongest point.

So why did Colin say he’ll give you an answer on a certain date in a blog post? Because people were asking for answered and they wanted to know when the devs would give them those answers, so he told them.

My guess is, if people weren’t asking for answers NOW, he wouldn’t have said that.

But the other side of that coin is what if they really haven’t decided everything yet. What if they still have decisions to make?

Before Guild Wars 2 launched, Anet had more information about the game out there than just about any game I’ve ever seen. I knew exactly what a dynamic event would and wouldn’t be. I know pretty much exactly what the personal story would and wouldn’t be.

And even with all that communication, you still have people complaining that they were misled by the manifesto, because they didn’t look at anything else.

Sorry, but I don’t blame Anet for not talking to forum or even Reddit, unless they’ve at least attempted to cobble something together that will minimize the damage that’s sure to come from any annoucement…no matter what it is.

I’ve been someone discussing this in other threads but I have a request to the people making these types of demands;

“Hard, compelling content.”

Please elaborate on this. Give specific examples as to what you think ‘hard’ and ‘compelling’ content would look like in MMO terms.

Because with out going into too much detail myself, all I have to say is this is easier said then done.

fellyn.5083:

AntiGw.9367:

Insignya.8625:

The reward chances are broken, I don’t think proof is needed here. For reference point, I’ve committed close to 2000 hours in Guild Wars 2 and have never had an item worth more than 5 gold.

Nobody ever promised that you’d get a precursor in less than 500 hours, 2000 hours, 4000 hours and so on.

You conceived an arbitrary expectation for no reason whatsoever, and now rant because it wasn’t fulfilled.

How long do you propose people play before they’re “worthy” in your eyes, of a reward? Because after investing 2000 hours into something and not having anything to show for it most people are going to quit and tell everyone who will listen to avoid the game.

I still don’t get why you’re defending such a bad game mechanic as rng.

whoever said you need a legendary to be “worthy”? Whoever said you need a legendary in the first place?

AntiGw.9367:

fellyn.5083:

AntiGw.9367:

Insignya.8625:

The reward chances are broken, I don’t think proof is needed here. For reference point, I’ve committed close to 2000 hours in Guild Wars 2 and have never had an item worth more than 5 gold.

Nobody ever promised that you’d get a precursor in less than 500 hours, 2000 hours, 4000 hours and so on.

You conceived an arbitrary expectation for no reason whatsoever, and now rant because it wasn’t fulfilled.

How long do you propose people play before they’re “worthy” in your eyes, of a reward? Because after investing 2000 hours into something and not having anything to show for it most people are going to quit and tell everyone who will listen to avoid the game.

I still don’t get why you’re defending such a bad game mechanic as rng.

Legendaries and similar skins are supposed to be rare, select few people are supposed to have them.

If you insist on arbitrary numbers, let’s do some arbitrary math with your 2000-hour precursors. A population of 2.000.000 players that plays on average only two hours per day, after a year of farming will generate over 700.000 precursors. With 20 precursor models, that’s 35.000 precursors of each type, after only one year.

If you don’t understand how “unrare” that is, consider that TP currently shows about 10.000 Globs of Ectoplasm. Or, there are only about 20-30 each of the cheapest and kittentiest exotic items that are much more easy to come by.

Question here is how it is rare. If it took a gargantuan effort to gather the materials and the requirements took time and effort then yes, it’ll be quite rare. But something thats so dependant on luck, will never be a truly “rare” unique prestige item.

Random luck CAN see someone drop two dusks in a short timespan. That’ll give them one to use, and one to sell so they have the mats. The rest, should then be a small step as they are the easier stuff to atain as you have a clear direct way of obtaining them(exception being clovers, which again are rng).

Meanwhile, another person can farm for months and years on end, and never being able to get this due to having poor drops.

I would far prefer a hard/long way to atain the pre and the other stuff for the legendary, than having rng extend the time it takes to get one. A way where you wouldn’t be able to strike gold with a lucky drop or two and thus get you legendary the easy way. It wouldn’t matter if the precursors are easy to get, if the other parts of the legendary took a different route than it curently does. As it is, much of the focus and talk about the legendary weapons are centered on the precursors, and not the legendary achivements needed to forge one. I feel, that in the curent gamestatus, the legendary weapons are less about playing the game and mastering the aspects required to get one(gift of exploration, gift of battle etc) and more about raw gold and the ever so elusive precursor(which can be atained through more gold)

ShaeMtal.9473:

AntiGw.9367:

fellyn.5083:

AntiGw.9367:

Insignya.8625:

The reward chances are broken, I don’t think proof is needed here. For reference point, I’ve committed close to 2000 hours in Guild Wars 2 and have never had an item worth more than 5 gold.

Nobody ever promised that you’d get a precursor in less than 500 hours, 2000 hours, 4000 hours and so on.

You conceived an arbitrary expectation for no reason whatsoever, and now rant because it wasn’t fulfilled.

How long do you propose people play before they’re “worthy” in your eyes, of a reward? Because after investing 2000 hours into something and not having anything to show for it most people are going to quit and tell everyone who will listen to avoid the game.

I still don’t get why you’re defending such a bad game mechanic as rng.

Legendaries and similar skins are supposed to be rare, select few people are supposed to have them.

If you insist on arbitrary numbers, let’s do some arbitrary math with your 2000-hour precursors. A population of 2.000.000 players that plays on average only two hours per day, after a year of farming will generate over 700.000 precursors. With 20 precursor models, that’s 35.000 precursors of each type, after only one year.

If you don’t understand how “unrare” that is, consider that TP currently shows about 10.000 Globs of Ectoplasm. Or, there are only about 20-30 each of the cheapest and kittentiest exotic items that are much more easy to come by.

Question here is how it is rare. If it took a gargantuan effort to gather the materials and the requirements took time and effort then yes, it’ll be quite rare. But something thats so dependant on luck, will never be a truly “rare” unique prestige item.

Random luck CAN see someone drop two dusks in a short timespan. That’ll give them one to use, and one to sell so they have the mats. The rest, should then be a small step as they are the easier stuff to atain as you have a clear direct way of obtaining them(exception being clovers, which again are rng).

Meanwhile, another person can farm for months and years on end, and never being able to get this due to having poor drops.

I would far prefer a hard/long way to atain the pre and the other stuff for the legendary, than having rng extend the time it takes to get one. A way where you wouldn’t be able to strike gold with a lucky drop or two and thus get you legendary the easy way. It wouldn’t matter if the precursors are easy to get, if the other parts of the legendary took a different route than it curently does. As it is, much of the focus and talk about the legendary weapons are centered on the precursors, and not the legendary achivements needed to forge one. I feel, that in the curent gamestatus, the legendary weapons are less about playing the game and mastering the aspects required to get one(gift of exploration, gift of battle etc) and more about raw gold and the ever so elusive precursor(which can be atained through more gold)

You forget that the “Random luck” part only consists for 1/3-at most 1/2 of the total price required for the legendary. The only reason that precursors are given the most attention is that unlike the other parts, you can’t farm for it incrementally (unless you buy one in TP). Gift of fortune alone costs 411g average total. The only ones that the precs cost more than 1/2 of the total cost is bifrost and twilight.

ShaeMtal.9473:

AntiGw.9367:

fellyn.5083:

AntiGw.9367:

Insignya.8625:

The reward chances are broken, I don’t think proof is needed here. For reference point, I’ve committed close to 2000 hours in Guild Wars 2 and have never had an item worth more than 5 gold.

Nobody ever promised that you’d get a precursor in less than 500 hours, 2000 hours, 4000 hours and so on.

You conceived an arbitrary expectation for no reason whatsoever, and now rant because it wasn’t fulfilled.

How long do you propose people play before they’re “worthy” in your eyes, of a reward? Because after investing 2000 hours into something and not having anything to show for it most people are going to quit and tell everyone who will listen to avoid the game.

I still don’t get why you’re defending such a bad game mechanic as rng.

Legendaries and similar skins are supposed to be rare, select few people are supposed to have them.

If you insist on arbitrary numbers, let’s do some arbitrary math with your 2000-hour precursors. A population of 2.000.000 players that plays on average only two hours per day, after a year of farming will generate over 700.000 precursors. With 20 precursor models, that’s 35.000 precursors of each type, after only one year.

If you don’t understand how “unrare” that is, consider that TP currently shows about 10.000 Globs of Ectoplasm. Or, there are only about 20-30 each of the cheapest and kittentiest exotic items that are much more easy to come by.

I would far prefer a hard/long way to atain the pre and the other stuff for the legendary, than having rng extend the time it takes to get one.

You have one, grind the gold.

penatbater.4710:

You forget that the “Random luck” part only consists for 1/3-at most 1/2 of the total price required for the legendary. The only reason that precursors are given the most attention is that unlike the other parts, you can’t farm for it incrementally (unless you buy one in TP). Gift of fortune alone costs 411g average total. The only ones that the precs cost more than 1/2 of the total cost is bifrost and twilight.

Its hardly forgotten in my post. As I said, the work for a legendary is more about getting the precursor than the other stuff. That is what people are focusing on and where the discussion are the hottest. As long as you can work towards something piece by piece and get closer as you go on, its total cost is not as troubling to players as the one massive chunk a precursor represents. If you gather all the mats in the gift of fortune into one sum, then yes, theyre comperable. But the precursor is just one of the items needed, one of the ingredients yet is the one which represents the most costs and cause the most controversy amongst players.

The main focus becomes getting a precursor because its the single most hard part to get. It’s not on doing set tasks ingame like the gifts of exploration or the gift of battle, its a task that directly transelates to raw gold value. Yes the gift of fortune can be measured in gold too, but it’s at the very least posible to do this in parts and farm bits of it by yourself either through direct drops or gold.

CryxTryx.9208:

ShaeMtal.9473:

AntiGw.9367:

fellyn.5083:

AntiGw.9367:

Insignya.8625:

The reward chances are broken, I don’t think proof is needed here. For reference point, I’ve committed close to 2000 hours in Guild Wars 2 and have never had an item worth more than 5 gold.

Nobody ever promised that you’d get a precursor in less than 500 hours, 2000 hours, 4000 hours and so on.

You conceived an arbitrary expectation for no reason whatsoever, and now rant because it wasn’t fulfilled.

How long do you propose people play before they’re “worthy” in your eyes, of a reward? Because after investing 2000 hours into something and not having anything to show for it most people are going to quit and tell everyone who will listen to avoid the game.

I still don’t get why you’re defending such a bad game mechanic as rng.

Legendaries and similar skins are supposed to be rare, select few people are supposed to have them.

If you insist on arbitrary numbers, let’s do some arbitrary math with your 2000-hour precursors. A population of 2.000.000 players that plays on average only two hours per day, after a year of farming will generate over 700.000 precursors. With 20 precursor models, that’s 35.000 precursors of each type, after only one year.

If you don’t understand how “unrare” that is, consider that TP currently shows about 10.000 Globs of Ectoplasm. Or, there are only about 20-30 each of the cheapest and kittentiest exotic items that are much more easy to come by.

I would far prefer a hard/long way to atain the pre and the other stuff for the legendary, than having rng extend the time it takes to get one.

You have one, grind the gold.

Yet is that good gameplay or a legendary task? Does that truly make the item you grind for and try to make a rare prestige item? Its just a gold barrier. Nothing legendary about it.

ShaeMtal.9473:

CryxTryx.9208:

ShaeMtal.9473:

AntiGw.9367:

fellyn.5083:

AntiGw.9367:

Insignya.8625:

The reward chances are broken, I don’t think proof is needed here. For reference point, I’ve committed close to 2000 hours in Guild Wars 2 and have never had an item worth more than 5 gold.

Nobody ever promised that you’d get a precursor in less than 500 hours, 2000 hours, 4000 hours and so on.

You conceived an arbitrary expectation for no reason whatsoever, and now rant because it wasn’t fulfilled.

How long do you propose people play before they’re “worthy” in your eyes, of a reward? Because after investing 2000 hours into something and not having anything to show for it most people are going to quit and tell everyone who will listen to avoid the game.

I still don’t get why you’re defending such a bad game mechanic as rng.

Legendaries and similar skins are supposed to be rare, select few people are supposed to have them.

If you insist on arbitrary numbers, let’s do some arbitrary math with your 2000-hour precursors. A population of 2.000.000 players that plays on average only two hours per day, after a year of farming will generate over 700.000 precursors. With 20 precursor models, that’s 35.000 precursors of each type, after only one year.

If you don’t understand how “unrare” that is, consider that TP currently shows about 10.000 Globs of Ectoplasm. Or, there are only about 20-30 each of the cheapest and kittentiest exotic items that are much more easy to come by.

I would far prefer a hard/long way to atain the pre and the other stuff for the legendary, than having rng extend the time it takes to get one.

You have one, grind the gold.

Yet is that good gameplay or a legendary task? Does that truly make the item you grind for and try to make a rare prestige item? Its just a gold barrier. Nothing legendary about it.

I fully agree, however my point is you already have what you are asking for. You didn’t ask for a truly legendary way to obtain the item, you asked for a long/hard way to obtain it.

A ‘hard’ way to obtain a legendary would most likey be gated behind skill which is a very difficult thing to impliment well and would make just as many people angry. Which is why I always ask people that make demands such as your to be specific.

It is easy to say. “I want a hard way to obtain a Legendary”, with out offering any actual solution. How should it be long and difficult? Describe it. What is difficult content?

Anyway we’ve discussed this in depth beyond the 1st page in this topic if you care to read it.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Made-The-Lover-then-Spark-Now-3-more/page/3#post2331497

Ah yes, I could’ve been more specific I suppose, but being creative with these things are rather hard after a night without sleep.

In terms of what I’d prefer instead of the curent way to obtain it is something related to the gameworld, and exploring and completing it. While I myself wouldn’t mind it being gated behind skill, as I consider taking the time to overcome a difficult task in a game as being dedicated and thus deserving of a reward thats related to this(a legendary is verymuch a symbol of dedication), I see the problems it could cause.
There is stil the option of having it tied to something akin to the gift of exploration, where you could have “gifts” or other ways to aquire it by completing game content like jps and dungeons. It would stil kitten people off, but in terms of an item being legendary and a show of having played the game, that would be preferable to a item determined by its gold value.

You are going to step on toes no matter how you try to aproach issues like this, but as far as my opinion goes, a legendary item should be related to completing game content and showing the dedication to complete hard/time consuming/challenging content. While one could say that gaining the gold needed could qualify as this, I do not see this as the best outcome.

And yes, theres -that- thread. But for different reasons I’d rather not touch that one.

I think one of the challenges to tying it to game world content is keeping the Legendary skins rare.

How ever you do it, you have to include an element and stops just anyone from reaching out and grabbing a legendary. Even if the game world content to took 6 months of dedicated play, eventually everyone would do it and then everyone woudl have a legendary.

IMO there must be a chance a fail.

But even with gold being the determining factor in a legendary due to how the rng works now, people will stil atain the legendary down the road. 6 months of dedicated farming will see you the gold needed to get it, but it wont necceseraly be an enjoayble ride there.

I agree that there must be an element where the player can fail at getting it, but is RNG the way to prolong getting one?

The game will eventualy reach a state where legendaries are commonplace. This cannot be avoided even if they are rng based. The best way as I see it to keep legendaries rare, is to introduce new ones. As players get to the step where they make the final push for their legendary, there is enough variation amongst them and enough different paths to take that this leads to plenty of diversity amongst the legendaries to keep them rare. (god what an awfull sentence, but I’m to tired to try and make it simpler)

Whats most important is the way to get one, if its percived as fun, challenging and diverse opposed to tedious, luck based and grindy.

ShaeMtal.9473:

But even with gold being the determining factor in a legendary due to how the rng works now, people will stil atain the legendary down the road. 6 months of dedicated farming will see you the gold needed to get it, but it wont necceseraly be an enjoayble ride there.

I agree that there must be an element where the player can fail at getting it, but is RNG the way to prolong getting one?

The game will eventualy reach a state where legendaries are commonplace. This cannot be avoided even if they are rng based. The best way as I see it to keep legendaries rare, is to introduce new ones. As players get to the step where they make the final push for their legendary, there is enough variation amongst them and enough different paths to take that this leads to plenty of diversity amongst the legendaries to keep them rare. (god what an awfull sentence, but I’m to tired to try and make it simplet)

Whats most important is the way to get one, if its percived as fun, challenging and diverse opposed to tedious, luck based and grindy.

I disagree to some extent. At this point I don’t think we risk Legendaries ever becoming very common place.

Because how daunting the task of obtaining a Legendary currently is, (whether that system is good or bad), there are people who have decided not to even try for one.

There are people who have tried for one and given up.

There are people who are trying for one and will yet give up.

And the people who eventually get one or two will only do so on one or two of their characters.

So as it stands right now I don’t think we risk Legendaries becoming common place any time soon and I think that is the way it should be.

I do think that the sytem could be improved, I do think there is a better, more fun, more Legendary way to do it, I just don’t know what that way is and I don’t blame Anet for no knowing yet either.

That being said a Legendary should be rare, or IMO it is no longer a Legendary and the current system accomplishes that.

What’s the point of PvE Content currently? I’m not talking about the people who haven’t completed their personal story yet or are still prancing around each zone studying butterflies. I’m talking about those who have reached the end game and have some goal in mind. It’s to get a good skin – either a legendary or something along the lines of Volcanus or Infinite Light.

The reason you farm world events is to get gold and mats to get better skins. How, how is that not different from a gear grind, tell me. These arguments are void – legendaries aren’t arbitrary, sure, but what else is there for us to work towards? Here, I’ll show you the options for endgame:

1) Grind WvW Ranks
2) Grind PvP Ranks
3) Grind a legendary
4) Grind any other skin
5) Grind achievements
6) Gamble in the Forge (is that even an activity?)

Don’t call guild missions endgame, because they were fun when they were fresh. Now they’re boring, repetitive and everyone knows how to do each one. So you’re either “having fun”, which is basically saying there’s no end game, or you do the above activities. So what if you don’t need to spend hours and hours grinding – if this is Arena.NET’s idea of an end game, then for committed people that’s the end game.

So I’ll ask again: assuming you are not a person living with the delusion that people play MMOs because they don’t have Skype, how is the current state of Guild Wars 2’s end game a different mechanic from gear grinding?

Insignya.8625:

What’s the point of PvE Content currently? I’m not talking about the people who haven’t completed their personal story yet or are still prancing around each zone studying butterflies. I’m talking about those who have reached the end game and have some goal in mind. It’s to get a good skin – either a legendary or something along the lines of Volcanus or Infinite Light.

The reason you farm world events is to get gold and mats to get better skins. How, how is that not different from a gear grind, tell me. These arguments are void – legendaries aren’t arbitrary, sure, but what else is there for us to work towards? Here, I’ll show you the options for endgame:

1) Grind WvW Ranks
2) Grind PvP Ranks
3) Grind a legendary
4) Grind any other skin
5) Grind achievements
6) Gamble in the Forge (is that even an activity?)

Don’t call guild missions endgame, because they were fun when they were fresh. Now they’re boring, repetitive and everyone knows how to do each one. So you’re either “having fun”, which is such a loose term and generally doesn’t apply to a game with no purpose, or you do the above activities. So what if you don’t need to spend hours and hours grinding – if this is Arena.NET’s idea of an end game, then for committed people *that*’s the end game.

So I’ll ask again: assuming you are not a person living with the delusion that people play MMOs because they don’t have Skype, how is the current state of Guild Wars 2’s end game a different mechanic from gear grinding?

When I achieve whatever goal I set for myself, I search for a new goal. If I can’t find a new goal, I move on to another game for a while. Sometimes I just run around the world map gathering nodes and killing mobs/doing events.

Does PvE need a point?

I’m glad OP feels that Fractals is such a major and important aspect of the game….seems to think it was what made GW2 better, good for you.

I don’t touch Fractals, ever. I tried it a coupe of times and immediately knew I wasn’t going to like it. I wouldn’t want it removed however, because it is nice to know other people like this content.

I am an open-world farmer. I like dynamic events, and I want to see MORE challenging dynamic events. The key point that attracted me to this game was the dynamic events, was the open-changing world, the fact that there are no stagnant and ever frozen-in-time quests, so for me Living Story, dynamic events….anything that changes the outside world appeals to me greatly.

I’m not a dungeon grinder and will never be, I had my fill of that in Aion.

CryxTryx.9208:

ShaeMtal.9473:

But even with gold being the determining factor in a legendary due to how the rng works now, people will stil atain the legendary down the road. 6 months of dedicated farming will see you the gold needed to get it, but it wont necceseraly be an enjoayble ride there.

I agree that there must be an element where the player can fail at getting it, but is RNG the way to prolong getting one?

The game will eventualy reach a state where legendaries are commonplace. This cannot be avoided even if they are rng based. The best way as I see it to keep legendaries rare, is to introduce new ones. As players get to the step where they make the final push for their legendary, there is enough variation amongst them and enough different paths to take that this leads to plenty of diversity amongst the legendaries to keep them rare. (god what an awfull sentence, but I’m to tired to try and make it simplet)

Whats most important is the way to get one, if its percived as fun, challenging and diverse opposed to tedious, luck based and grindy.

I disagree to some extent. At this point I don’t think we risk Legendaries ever becoming very common place.

Because how daunting the task of obtaining a Legendary currently is, (whether that system is good or bad), there are people who have decided not to even try for one.

There are people who have tried for one and given up.

There are people who are trying for one and will yet give up.

And the people who eventually get one or two will only do so on one or two of their characters.

So as it stands right now I don’t think we risk Legendaries becoming common place any time soon and I think that is the way it should be.

I do think that the sytem could be improved, I do think there is a better, more fun, more Legendary way to do it, I just don’t know what that way is and I don’t blame Anet for no knowing yet either.

That being said a Legendary should be rare, or IMO it is no longer a Legendary and the current system accomplishes that.

Yet they will, as legendaries is one, if not the most prominent endgame goal of GW2. People will work for them. Also, when people cannot reliably see themselves getting what they try to work for, they will simply stop. As more of the population get legendaries, and more of the population give up on legendaries and posibly stop playing, legs will become more common due the % of playing players who has them. The only way to keep them truly rare is to create enough variation that you wont see two of the same legendary weapons in the same group as an example. Like you can now with twilight wielding wars, mesmers and guards. Diversity is the best way to keep something rare, rng just prolongs the time it takes before it become common.

Insignya.8625:

What’s the point of PvE Content currently? I’m not talking about the people who haven’t completed their personal story yet or are still prancing around each zone studying butterflies. I’m talking about those who have reached the end game and have some goal in mind. It’s to get a good skin – either a legendary or something along the lines of Volcanus or Infinite Light.

The reason you farm world events is to get gold and mats to get better skins. How, how is that not different from a gear grind, tell me. These arguments are void – legendaries aren’t arbitrary, sure, but what else is there for us to work towards? Here, I’ll show you the options for endgame:

1) Grind WvW Ranks
2) Grind PvP Ranks
3) Grind a legendary
4) Grind any other skin
5) Grind achievements
6) Gamble in the Forge (is that even an activity?)

Don’t call guild missions endgame, because they were fun when they were fresh. Now they’re boring, repetitive and everyone knows how to do each one. So you’re either “having fun”, which is basically saying there’s no end game, or you do the above activities. So what if you don’t need to spend hours and hours grinding – if this is Arena.NET’s idea of an end game, then for committed people that’s the end game.

So I’ll ask again: assuming you are not a person living with the delusion that people play MMOs because they don’t have Skype, how is the current state of Guild Wars 2’s end game a different mechanic from gear grinding?

What is the point of an FPS game’s content? You still just run around shooting people, there’s no other endgame. You grind ranks in Battlefield, but that’s about it.

What is the point of an action game’s content? You can spend hours and hours grinding weapons for your Hitman’s cabin, but that’s about it. There’s no endgame here either.

What is the point of an arcade game’s content? The endgame in Mario is basically grinding more coins.

See how your post applies to every game in history? If you don’t enjoy sPvP, you have no reason to play it, grinding sPvP ranks will not substitute having fun. If you don’t enjoy WvW, there’s no point in grinding WvW ranks.

Your understanding of what GW2 is offering is seriously messed up. In GW2 you reach your goals by playing the game normally. You do what you like, and it gives you cookies. You don’t have to do something boring just to reach a goal, you first find something you like and then a goal appears somewhere along the way.

Instead, you demand the stupidest crap that you’ve seen in other MMOs – first you come up with a goal, and then demand that the content is wrapped around it.

No, I never said I wanted new Fractals, all I did say was that Fractals were an example of challenging content that expanded the game’s horizon.

And in FPS-es you get upgrades, new guns, prestige badges, etc. So no, it’s not the same thing, far from it, in fact. I won’t dive into that, if you never bothered to understand my original post you won’t get this either.

According to the moderator, I can’t disagree with people who’re throwing blind insults so yes, AntiGW, you are completely correct here and everywhere in life.

Insignya.8625:

1)Praise doesn’t help…

2)and neither does whining.

3)Guild Wars 2 is following trends, not the manifesto

4)Reward is crucial

5)The best rewards should be the hardest to earn

6)Invest in the future, not in the Living Story

7)Hardcore content = longevity

1) But adding temporary skins, consumable fireworks/funboxes, and minis DOES bring A.Net money for the larger, “free” content updates for the game. It is a long-term business model because they’ve already done it for GW1. It’s worked for them so far, sorry that you’re incorrect.

2) You call it “whining”, others call it constructive feedback. Players have stated what they want, A.Net listened, and things changed. Simple and works.

3) Temporary content, which is a living, breathing world of Meta Dynamic Events on a bi-weekly basis is exactly what was outlined in the manifesto (another thing you’re incorrect about). RNG, or random drops, random pick ups, and so on is something that’s been a keystone of MMO’s since their conception, since the days of MUD’s, and since the days of 6-sided dice tabletop RPG’s (R.I.P. Gary Gygax); more over, there was nothing in the oh-so-holy Manifesto that says that the game wouldn’t have a background RNG based system.

4) Your offense to the Mystic Forge is the same as to random world drops, a key that every MMO out there has/had. WoW is notorious for it (or was, not sure how it is now). A person finds an awesome item adventuring and wants to sell it. He doesn’t magically get 500g, he gets it from someone who unfortunately didn’t find the item but had the coin, so they buy it. Coin trades hands from one rich guy to the next, and the system sinks 15% into oblivion (75g gone forever).

5)The best rewards for this game are shiny weapons that have sparkly effects. Most are Legendary, some are just really uber-rare Exotics. They are all hard to earn, especially the Legendary ones that require you to invest heavily into every part of the game (minus sPvP). So….moot point?

6) Living story IS the future of this game. It’s been known for quite some time (6 months ago during S.O.G. blog before F&F kicked off). You only assume that A.Net is shortsighted, which is quite rude by the way. If attention was paid, you’d know that they have already planned out a full years worth of content updates way back during the last phases of F&F. The whole Living Story is one big Meta that will lead to a player nemesis being revealed and conquered. It’s good chapter content that has a very interesting story. The rest of your demands are nothing more than rants about Guild Halls, which is content that is what? A random hall for your guild to meet in? Why can’t they do this at one of the dozens of bars in the 7 major cities in Tyria? Progressing PvE story content….or….random instanced, completely useless rooms for guilds? Which should be worked on….

7) What proof do you have to provide for your “fact that GW2 is losing it’s player base”? Do you have access to A.Net’s and NCSoft’s corporate accounting numbers, player charts, and information? I thought not. This game is casual friendly, nothing wrong with that (and you’re wrong about casual games not lasting, as there have been many, including the hat-friendly TF2 for a long time). Hardcore content is there in the form of WvW rank progression -which titles the player, beyond just increasing WvW skills- and Legendary weapons. You may not see them as hardcore, but that’s opinion based…my opinion is that something taking dedication and still 3 months to create in a video game is hardcore..casual, good luck getting it even within 9 months!

Insignya.8625:

8)Fractals gave Guild Wars 2 meaning

9)WvW doesn’t encourage teamplay

10)Endgame is a goal, not a time-sink

11)Why shouldn’t I choose the competition?

12)Quitting only exacerbates the problem

8) No. Fractals gave GW2 additional content in the form of short series of dungeon “wings” in the form of time-portals through mirrors of Tyria’s past. Ascended gear was an obnoxious addition that dragged people out of other content because those random numbers on items were a measure of their self and thus they had to have more. Only when Ascended gear was added to Guild Mission, Dailies, and now WvW is it fairly even that people can FREELY CHOOSE THE CONTENT THEY WANT while still getting the top gear that’s within the game. After all, that’s what the developers originally wanted with this game (manifesto).

9) WvW does encourage teamplay. You may just not be a team player. Find a good guild to run with and it makes all the difference.

10) The whole game for GW2 is …the game. Sure there’s a Level Cap, but there’s no “end-game”. The game continues, it doesn’t ever end….heck, even when hitting level 80 a player still gets Skill Points from XP gained, still leveling, though not leveling…it’s just a cap on stats (clearly for balance reasons). The rest of this # is biased ranting saying that there’s no rewards in Tyria (huh?) and that everything a person does is a “task”, not an adventure (I’m guessing that’s perspective of someone who just doesn’t seem to have fun).

11) {Rant about how this game is “dying” with nothing constructive] PASS

12) People are making the suggestion not to “don’t like it, leave” as a rude condescension, but instead of a brutish way to push off what should be a polite suggestion. It should read “If you’re not having fun and not enjoying the game for what it is, best move on to something that you would enjoy more.” But it’s said in a brutish manner because instead of doing just that, people such as yourself try to demand that the game that other people enjoy should be completely altered to something different to appease yourself. It’s rude and totally selfish to do, thus they are a bit defensive when it comes to that.

Insignya.8625:

13)“I want this to be a niche title”

14)The Buy-to-Play model

15)If I don’t like your content, I won’t like it years from now

16)Playing for fun. YOUR fun

17)If you cared about GW2 you would criticize it

13) A.Net caters to their audience for what they want to do. Be that niche, it’s fine. Requesting, …nay, demanding them to change it around to cater to players of other games already in the genre with features already in those other games is selfish and entitled.

14) A bit late to complain about the business model, right? The game is 9 months old, and it’s kind of already set. This game won’t be going subscription any time soon. The Gem Store seems to have plenty of support from the player base in purchases from the constant updates from A.Net that coincide with their content updates to the game.

15) I don’t understand this point. Is it another rant of hardcore vs casual in that we should ‘embrace’ a revamp of this game to cater to a very low population to make it like other games in a sense of….entitlement to that group of players? This game is what it is, content will not change to be what you’re asking for it to be (hardcore raiding, item progression, super-dooper uber rare skins that only 5 people in the entire game can get). It’s just not going to happen.

16) Wait…. I’ll agree to say that those who aren’t having fun are “doing it wrong” is incorrect. Instead, I’ll show them the door and say that there are many choices out there that they can go to that will be their particular flavor of fun. This game, however, is OUR Flavor of Fun. Us, the GW2 players who dislike gear grind (85% of other MMOs out there), who enjoy exploration (less than 20% of MMO’s have systems for this), who enjoy what this game is based on Living Story, on flat-stat plateaus that make everyone balanced, with skill based combat and action.

17) I figured this post was going to lead to a hug on another MMO. Didn’t expect it to be Wildstar, but by your point-to-point obsession with gear grinds, uber-rare drops, and raids, I should have figured as much. Incidentally you mention that “Wildstar is catering to all types”, yet from everything that I’ve seen in developer videos and such, it would seem that Wildstar is trying very hard to cater most exclusively to “the 1% hardcore raiding crowd”. Well, good for them, that’s their audience. This game’s audience is everyone who wants whatever they want, save for the hardcore raider. This game (GW2) is NOT FOR THEM. Period. Exclamation point! This game is for the PvEer who likes a progressing story arcs instead of 1 new raid every 3-6 months to grind through, the WvWer who wants to have big fights in large crowds over control of towers/keeps/castles/camps, the sPvPer who wants to do some skilled and balanced fights where gear isn’t a factor, the explorer who wants to find new random things in the nooks and crannies of the world, the completionist who wants to be top in Achievements earned for everything, the casual player who logs in 1hr a week to chat with friends on the weekend while running a dungeon, and more. Just. Not. The. Hardcore. Raider. No, not going to happen. Not now, not ever.

Insignya.8625:

No, I never said I wanted new Fractals, all I did say was that Fractals were an example of challenging content that expanded the game’s horizon.

And in FPS-es you get upgrades, new guns, prestige badges, etc. So no, it’s not the same thing, far from it, in fact. I won’t dive into that, if you never bothered to understand my original post you won’t get this either.

According to the moderator, I can’t disagree with people who’re throwing blind insults so yes, AntiGW, you are completely correct here and everywhere in life.

I don’t think you understand the analogies I made.

In games like Counter Strike, Battlefield, there’s little to no unlocking after a certain point. There’s no uber weapon, no special content, just some vague ranks at 100.000+ hours. We just like to shoot each other, so we keep playing anyway. This is like sPvP and WvW, you play those modes for the sake of playing (and there’s some insubstantial ranking and achievements, and some cosmetic rewards).

In games like Hitman, your reward for doing your best is… a few achievements, and cosmetic weapons that maybe behave a little differently. You play such a game for the experience of stealth, your main goal is to accomplish the mission itself. Do you actually enjoy this sort of thing? Because if you don’t, there’s no point in going for the perfect score. This is like some PvE aspects of GW2 – if you don’t enjoy the immersion, no amount of artificial gimmicks is going to keep your interest.

The point I’m making is that GW2 is built on things that made these games so popular – which is playing the game itself. Do you think the Super Adventure Box was a random addition?

I disagree with most of your posts. I, and many others, love the direction this game is going. It’s not perfect, but it kicks the snot out of the upcoming MMO’s in my opinion. I wouldn’t dare touch NWO or TESO, or even FFXIV ARR. That being said, I would like tougher content, akin to Aetherblade Retreat, but for it to be permanent. Or hard modes of existing dungeons brought to that level for awesome skins. For what this game lacks though, it gives me more then enough to stick through it for the long haul.